There are no related applications.
The present invention is generally directed toward the treatment of breast cancer and more specifically toward the intraductal brachytherapy treatment of abnormal tissue and cells in the mammary breast ducts of women by placing a cartridge containing seeds or a construct which is treated to produce localized radiation via a cannula at the duct tissue site.
A leading disease incurred by women is breast cancer. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death for women of all ages and the leading cause of death for women aged 25-55 with approximately one in eight women incurring breast cancer in their lifetimes. Approximately 220,000 surgeries are performed annually in the United States with almost 20 percent requiring the complete removal of the breast. The current medical standard for determining breast cancer in women is mammography. For breast cancer detection, other than clinical examination and self-examination, women rely almost exclusively on mammography. It is estimated that more than 30 million mammograms are performed each year in the U.S. alone. Mammography is so insensitive that typically the average size of the tumor detected is ranges between 1 and 2 cms. At approximately 1.5 cm. size, a tumor has probably been growing, undetected, for nearly 8 years on average. In fact, two-thirds of mammographically detected breast cancer is invasive. In addition, mammography is notorious for xe2x80x9cfalse positivexe2x80x9d readings, which lead to many unneeded biopsies. However mammography fails to detect up to 20% of breast cancers in women over 50 and up to 40% of breast cancers in younger women.
Medical researchers have long recognized that nearly all breast cancer originates in the epithelial lining of the mammary duct system. Furthermore, it is well established that, in its early stages, most breast cancer develops very slowly and remains confined to the mammary ducts for up to 7-10 years. If these very early stages of premalignant and malignant disease could be detected and treated while the cancer is within the mammary duct system, the result would be a substantially better medical treatment outcome.
After detection breast cancer is generally treatable in three ways: surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Surgery and radiation, of course, have risks and disadvantages well known to those skilled in the art. Chemotherapy also can be particularly disadvantageous as, for example, when the drugs involved cause sickness to the patient when they enter the blood stream.
Today""s primary treatment of breast cancer is traditional surgery, either mastectomy or lumpectomy with radiation therapy. Surgery is, by definition, invasive and traumatic. Because the exact margins of cancerous growth are difficult to pinpoint, a surgeon may remove more breast tissue than is necessary or not remove enough.
Breast tumors are often treated with a combination of tumor removal (lumpectomy) followed by external beam radiotherapy to the whole breast. This has been found in several studies to result in the same cure rate as total breast removal. Surprisingly, only one third or so of women choose to keep their breast. One of the reasons for this low number may be that the external radiotherapy can take as long as 7 weeks to give, and this can be too much time away from home or work for some women.
Internal source radiation therapy (referred to as brachytherapy) places capsules of radioactive material inside the patient in proximity to the tumorous tissue. Brachytherapy is a general term covering medical treatment which involves placement of a radioactive source near a diseased tissue and may involve the temporary or permanent implantation or insertion of a radioactive source into the body of a patient. The radioactive source is thereby located in proximity to the area of the body which is being treated. This has the advantage that a high dose of radiation may be delivered to the treatment site with relatively low dosages of radiation to surrounding or intervening healthy tissue.
Dose and placement are accurately controlled by the physical positioning of the isotope. Cancer Treatment Centers of America has a treatment program that uses 5 days of brachytherapy (temporary radiation implant) instead of 5-7 weeks of external beam radiotherapy. This shorter time period is of a great benefit to all patients, but especially working women, those who live a distance away from a treatment center as well as those who just want to get the treatment over with as quickly as possible. So far, three hospitals in North America have published early results using similar techniques (Breast Brachytherapy). Each has so far reported a 98%-100% tumor control rate in the breast.
Some of the potential benefits of intraductal brachytherapy are:
1. The entire treatment takes days instead of weeks.
2. The radiation dose is concentrated in the area of the mammary duct where the DCIS is located thus less radiation will reach the skin, lungs, heart, ribs, the healthy part of the breast, and the body as a whole.
3. Because the treatment is so short, the intraductal brachytherapy can be given before chemotherapy is started (if chemotherapy is required). Radiation appears to be more effective if it can be given earlier rather than later.
Although brachytherapy is a proven treatment for cancer, using brachytherapy instead of external beam radiation for intraductal breast cancer is a recent idea. Benign conditions that can lead to abnormal intraductal assessment include intraductal papilloma, hyperplasia and atypical ductal hyperplasia and these can be removed without requiring invasive surgery. Likewise, hormonal therapies, and pharmaceutical agents (Tamoxifen) may control the growth of intraductal cancerous lesions. All women should have biopsies or intraductal samplings (lavage) that document the presence of atypia or malignant disease before an intraductal brachytherapy procedure is performed. The mammary duct should also be assessed by office ductoscopy to exclude the possibility of intraductal papiliomas, which can be treated with a simple resection. In addition, mama ductoscopy may reveal women who have multi-focal abnormal epithelia tissue and thus may be candidates for more extensive intraductal therapy.
Brachytherapy has been proposed for use in the treatment of a variety of conditions, including arthritis and cancer, for example breast, brain, liver and ovarian cancer and especially prostate cancer in men (see for example J. C. Blasko et al., The Urological Clinics of North America, 23, 633-650 (1996), and H. Ragde et al., Cancer, 80, 442-453 (1997)). Treatment may involve the temporary implantation of a radioactive source for a calculated period, followed by its subsequent removal. Alternatively, the radioactive source may be permanently implanted in the patient and left to decay to an inert state over a predictable time. The use of temporary or permanent implantation depends on the isotope selected and the duration and intensity of treatment required.
Examples of permanently implantable sources include Iodine-125 or Palladium-103 as the radioisotope. The radioisotope is generally encapsulated in a titanium casing to form a xe2x80x9cseedxe2x80x9d which is then implanted. Temporary implants for the treatment of prostate cancer may involve Iridium-192 as the radioisotope.
Conventional radioactive sources for use in brachytherapy include so-called xe2x80x9cseedsxe2x80x9d, which are smooth sealed containers or capsules of a biocompatible material, for example of metals such as titanium or stainless steel, containing a radioisotope within a sealed chamber but permitting radiation to exit through the container/chamber walls (U.S. Pat. No. 4,323,055 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,351,049). Such seeds are only suitable for use with radioisotopes which emit radiation which can penetrate the chamber/container walls. Therefore, such seeds are generally used with radioisotopes which emit gamma.-radiation or low-energy X-rays, rather than with .beta.-emitting radioisotopes.
In brachytherapy, it is vital to the therapeutic outcome for the medical personnel administering the treatment to know the relative position of the radioactive source in relation to the tissue to be treated, to ensure that the radiation is delivered to the correct tissue and that no localized over or under dosing occurs. Current seeds therefore typically incorporate a marker for X-ray imaging such as a radiopaque metal (e.g. silver, gold or lead). Location of the implanted seed is then achieved via X-ray imaging, which exposes the patient to an additional radiation dose. Such radiopaque markers are typically shaped so that imaging gives information on the orientation as well as location of the seed in the body, since both are necessary for accurate radiation dosimetry calculations. Specifically, the dose distribution of the radiation is determined by the inverse square law and, accordingly, radiation effects on tissues at any distance from the radioactive source is limited. Nevertheless, brachytherapy is not amenable to tumors and cancers inaccessible by conventional surgical techniques.
Preferably, the insertion or implantation of a radioactive source for brachytherapy is carried out using minimally-invasive techniques such as, for example, techniques involving needles and/or catheters. It is possible to calculate a location for each radioactive source which will give the desired radiation dose profile. This can be done using knowledge of the radioisotope content of each source, the dimensions of the source, an accurate knowledge of the dimensions of the tissue or tissues in relation to which the source is to be placed, plus a knowledge of the position of said tissue relative to a reference point. The dimensions of tissues and organs within the body for use in such dosage calculations may be obtained prior to placement of the radioactive source by using conventional diagnostic imaging techniques including X-ray imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultrasound imaging. However, difficulties may arise during the radioactive source placement procedure which may adversely affect the accuracy of the placement of the source if only pre-placement images are used to guide the source placement. For example, tissue volume may change as a result of swelling or draining of fluid to and from the tissue. Tissue position and orientation can change in the patient""s body relative to a selected internal or external reference point as a result of for example manipulation during surgical procedures or movement of the patient. Thus, it is difficult to achieve accurate placement of sources to achieve a desired dosage profile in brachytherapy using only knowledge of tissue anatomy and position that was obtained prior to the placement procedure. Therefore, it is advantageous if real-time visualization of both the tissue and the radioactive source can be provided. During the implantation or insertion procedure, the location of the source may be inferred to be proximal to the tip of the device used for the procedure. However, the relative location of each separate radioactive source should be evaluated subsequent to the implantation procedure to determine if it is in a desired or undesired location and to assess the uniformity of the therapeutic dose of radiation to the tissue. Radioactive sources may migrate within the tissue following implantation. However, the relatively small size of current brachytherapy radioactive sources and the specular reflection properties of their surfaces makes them very difficult to detect by ultrasound imaging techniques, especially when they are orientated in directions other than substantially orthogonal to the incident ultrasound beam. Even very small deviations from relative to the incident ultrasound beam cause substantial reductions in the intensity of the echo signal.
Individual seeds may on rare occasions migrate within a patient""s body away from the initial site of implantation or insertion. This is highly undesirable from a clinical perspective, for example as it may lead to under dosing of a tumor or other diseased tissue and/or exposure of healthy tissue to radiation. There is therefore also a need for radioactive sources for use in brachytherapy which show a reduced tendency to migrate within a patient""s body when compared to conventional brachytherapy seeds.
Attempts have been made to provide an instrument which will allow the taking of tissue samples within small duct areas. A simple double barrel catheter with adjacent lumens is disclosed in U. S. Pat. No. 6,221,622 with one of the lumens being used to irrigate the milk duct of a breast and the other lumen being used to aspirate the fluid which has entered the duct allowing a continuous flow of saline through the duct which hopefully carries enough cells and tissues for a biopsy. Problems in the use of such an instrument include the small size required by the narrow small diameter lumens which can be blocked or limit the flow of fluid back through the aspiration lumen and thus preclude significant tissue collection or cause duct collapse. While the ""622 Patent shows a small lumen size, the size problem is magnified when the other existing prior art is attempted to be applied to breast ducts because of the small size and thin cell walls of the mammary ducts.
Thus, there is a need in the art for new and better micro-cannula/endoscope assemblies and methods for using same that can be used to directly visualize the mammary ducts of a breast where visualization is by means of endoscopic devices, direct visualization (as opposed to creation of photographic images) to provide accurate placement of the brachytherapy cartridge. The present invention offers the additional advantage that the equipment required is comparatively simple to use and is less expensive than the equipment required to create photographic displays from such images.
The present invention is directed toward the detection and treatment of abnormal growths and cancer located in the mammary ducts of women""s breasts which in the present invention is when the cancer is typically between two and three years old with a size of about 0.2 mm. This is over 50 times more sensitive than a standard mammogram According to the invention, an apparatus and a method is provided for intraductal brachytherapy of abnormal tissue found in the mammary duct using a micro-endoscope assembly having irrigation and aspiration capabilities. The micro-endoscope assembly includes a proximal actuation handle, an elongate flexible member extending from the proximal actuation handle and having an irrigation conduit.
The method comprises the steps of: inserting the cannula sheath in the duct of the breast of a woman, inserting the distal end of the micro-endoscope assembly into the sheath; viewing the inside of the duct as the distal end of the endoscope travels along the duct until a tissue abnormality is viewed; positioning the distal assembly proximate to a tissue to be treated; a temporary radiation implant (such as a seed) is placed into or onto the cancerous lesion (DCIS) in the duct. Either a radiation oncologist or breast surgeon may perform the procedure under direct visual guidance. The implants generate a low-dose-rate for an internal radiation treatment through the ducts. The implants are easily removed, and the patient will be able to go home on the same day. This will be performed on an outpatient basis. Patients will not be radioactive, and may do most of their usual activities during that period.
It is an object of the invention to allow physicians to perform a variety of intraductal cancer treatments with minimal or no discomfort for patients.
It is still another object of the invention to provide convenient, efficient, and economical mammary ductoscopy-breast care.
It is thus an object of the invention to provide a micro-endoscope assembly which can view the interior of a lactiferous duct to ascertain tissue abnormalities and deposit implants for intraductal brachytherapy.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide for the intraductal brachytherapy of tissue with more precision and less trauma than by convention surgical procedures.
In brachytherapy procedures, large amounts of time are currently consumed loading radio active seeds and spacers into the brachytherapy needles. Further, once the needles are loaded, it becomes difficult to verify the dosage (i.e. number of seeds) or to check the level of radioactivity in any individual seed or seeds.
It would, therefore, be advantageous to design a brachytherapy seed or construct cartridge which decreases the time required to check dosage and radiation
It another object of the invention to. design a brachytherapy seed or construct cartridge which facilitates loading of the cannula prior to the brachytherapy procedure.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a medical instrument of high durability which is easily cleaned and sterilized.
It is also an object of the micro-endoscope assembly invention to create a micro-endoscope assembly which can be easily handled by the physician for intraductal treatment.